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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Digital Cameras as Notepads

I have a digital camera with me most of the time. One of the ways I use my camera is for notes. If I take a picture at a certain location--let's say of an ancestor's house--I first take a picture of the street sign. When I add the photos to my computer, they will be in order. The street sign photo will tell me where the house is until I can get notes and tags on the photo.

When I went to the Family History Center yesterday, there were four films waiting for me. When I found the marriage record I was seeking, I took a picture of the film case first:

Now that I am back home and getting ready to add this record to my database, I have the information on the film including the unique 7-digit number. I also capture images of the spine and introductory pages of a book so I know everything I can about the record for input when I get home.

Cameras aren't just for pretty pictures. They're also good for taking notes in a pinch.

I love my digital camera too and use it for documenting all sorts of oddball stuff.

Your idea of taking a picture of the street sign before taking the picture of the house is fantastic! It seems like I write that all down but then might misplace the note before I get home to record the info! Your method keeps all of the information together!

Great idea. I usually staple my pink slip to anything I find on the film (if I find multiple records, I write the FHL film info on the back of the other copies). Carrying the digital camera around is an absolute must!

not genealogy related but another way to use a digital camera is for tracking mileage - I had a job where I needed to do this so I'd click the camera at the odometer as I got in the car at the beginning of the day and then again when I got home.

Amy, I have my camera with me at all times, I've tried to use it as a notepad but I'm not quite organized yet...I have some ideas of how to take pictures in order but when you are doing tombstones for Find a Grave, it's not always so clear..at least not at the two public cemetaries in Tucson. For example, Section 10, has row F, and you might have stones at lots 1-4 and 6-12, and 15, 16 and 19...kinda makes liner tracking a bit of a challange...I have an idea or two how to overcome this, but I am still working on it.

I really like your idea of taking a pic of the spine of the film...you are so organized = )

Digital cameras are banned from most of the Scottish archives, although they did once allow me to take a photo of a page in a book which was too big to photocopy. Great idea about street names & cemetery signs - the doubt can't creep in afterwards! Jo

I'm using my dig camera to take pictures of pages of old courthouse books that were given to my gen society. I can send these pics through email to volunteers who will help with transcribing the old books, and I can put the pics on cds to save for future use. Some of the writing in these old books was done in pencil and it is fading! I love using my camera for genealogy!

I'm currently working on a HUGE research project on the family structure of St. Augustine, Florida, during the Second Spanish Period. I'm working with the East Florida papers, which have tons of information about St. Augustine -- censuses, tax lists, merchant's accounts, marriage licenses, and that's just scratching the surface. I do not have time to transcribe these things by hand from the microfilm-reader screen, and I also have severe arthritis in my hands, so I take digital pix of the image on the screen. So far it's working wonderfully, so I can grab a huge number of images and go home and use a wonderful little program I found called Transcript, which splits the screen between the digital image and an area where you type your transcription. Of course, this is a method to be used only with public-domain documents, which is mainly what I'm working with since the historical period I'm focused on is 1783-1821!

I carry an actual notepad that I scribble on and then take a photo of my scribble. For example I may make a note such as "no other papers in file." Then when I am going through the pics later I'll know that I didn't miss anything. This might work for Sheri when photographing a cemetery. A note about a section or plot number will be in the proper place in with the photos.